Get a Lawyer Because Not Paying Is Going to Be Worse
Video Transcribed: Hello, my name is Jason Lile and I am a Tulsa father’s rights attorney here for Northeastern Oklahoma. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about child support.
Your basic understanding of it is obviously going to be that if there’s a child support order, you’re supposed to pay it. If there’s not, that can be more confusing because in some circumstances you’re supposed to pay for it. But I get a lot of clients who are upset because their visitation is being withheld, the other parent is not being cooperative, and so their reaction or the temptation can be, ‘I’m just not going to pay my child support because I’m not getting to see the child.”
It’s very important that you consult an experienced family law attorney about this if that’s the situation because there are always ramifications for not paying child support, the least of which is accrued interest, the most serious of which can be going to jail for six months if there’s an existing court order that you’re ignoring and the cash bond, meaning you have to come up with all of it, will be the amount that you owe so. You can be in jail for the entire six months.
More often than not, your hunting license can be suspended, and sometimes your driver’s license can be suspended. They can take your tax returns. So the consequences for not paying child support far outweigh the benefit that you could receive if you could coerce the other party into giving you your visitation rights.
Instead, you should consult an experienced family law attorney who can help you independently with your visitation rights. And we had a previous video about that that I encourage you to watch, but the solution to not receiving your visitation is not to not pay your child support. You always want to consult a lawyer about that. My advice will always be to err on the side of paying it and let the lawyer pursue an overpayment credit if that’s what’s happened.
If you have any other questions about this issue or any other family law issue, again, my name is Attorney Jason Lyle, and I am a child custody lawyer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You can find my contact information at tulsafathersrights.lawyer or Dads.Law and I would be happy to consult with you.
